Desenvolvimento profissional de professoras que ensinam matemática nos anos iniciais: trajetórias, crenças e desafios da prática docente

Abstract

This qualitative research study draws on a collaborative and interpretive perspective, articulating teacher education processes, knowledge production, and teacher professional development to understand the factors that influence the professional growth of female teachers who teach Mathematics in the early years of Elementary Education. In this context, the research was guided by the following question: how does the professional development of female teachers who teach Mathematics in the early years of Elementary Education take shape within a shared teacher education group, considering their formative trajectories and the reflective and collaborative processes produced within it? Data were produced through narrative interviews conducted with the participants and eleven Shared Professional Development Meetings, held between November 2023 and July 2024, at a public school located in a city in the interior of Minas Gerais. The formative meetings were organized based on demands presented by the teachers themselves and addressed topics related to the teaching of Mathematics in the early years of Elementary Education, such as the Decimal Number System, Problem Solving, Geometry, the use of Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICTs), and pedagogical planning. The research sought to understand the factors that influence the professional development of the female teachers and to analyze the reflective processes produced in the context of shared teacher education. The study is grounded, among other authors, in Marcelo García (2009; 2011), Nóvoa (1992a, 1992c), Tardif (2011), Zeichner (1993), Gatti and Barreto (2009), Passos and Nacarato (2018), Cyrino and Grando (2022), and Pereira and Anunciato (2023), in addition to engaging in dialogue with normative documents related to teacher education in the Brazilian context. Data analysis made it possible to identify three axes that influence the professional development of the participants: (1) the constitution of professional development in the teachers’ narratives; (2) the process of reflection and collaboration in the shared professional development meetings; and (3) the voice of school management regarding teacher professional development: tensions and possibilities. In addition, it showed that the shared professional development meetings constituted spaces for dialogue, reflection, and exchange of experiences regarding the teaching of Mathematics, favoring the explicit articulation of beliefs, conceptions, and challenges related to teaching practice. The results demonstrate that teacher professional development constitutes a complex process, marked by the articulation between personal experiences, formative trajectories, family support, working conditions, and opportunities for reflection on practice. The shared teacher education meetings favored the problematization of experiences, the circulation of professional knowledge, and reflection on the teaching of Mathematics, although they were also intersected by institutional challenges and the concrete conditions of teaching work. Therefore, the thesis is that the professional development of female teachers who teach Mathematics in the early years of Elementary Education is constituted progressively through the articulation between personal and professional trajectories, formative trajectories, working conditions, institutional support, and opportunities for reflection and collaboration, with shared teacher education playing an important role in the problematization of practice and the production of professional knowledge. It is concluded that contextualized formative processes, constructed based on teachers' demands and supported by consistent theoretical frameworks, may foster the professional development of female teachers who teach Mathematics in the early years of Elementary Education.